Hunting knives and related projects

[Von Gruff]

This is just a little reshaping of the fugly handirifle stock

Here is one I did a while back for a friend. The 500 S&W makes this a potent little rifle but the handi rifle stock is an abomination so he asked me to do something with it.



A thick neck with oversized meeting with the action socket



The traditional line from the toe through to the wrist was much too deep at the rear of the grip area.



The bandsaw gave me somewhere to start

[Von Gruff]

My grip cap guide showed me how unsemetrical it was



Marking it out and ready to start





a guide to give the bottom of the grip some shape

[Von Gruff]

Then the forestock needed some taken off the great thick lump that it was


A much easier handle to hold onto now



One thing I did learn was that with the laminate stocks it is best to start with a sealer on the wood as the oil really soaks in and darkens the end grain so will get that right on the next one I have to work on.



And ready for a night of fun on the pigs

[montana]

I like how that came out, much better. I checked two single shot shotguns and one rifle of mine after seeing this. Using a straight edge and grip cap guide was a good idea, and yup my rifles look very similar. New project for me now. They are not very expensive firearms so it will be a fun project. What sealer do you use for a laminated stock? Did you have to shape and fit what appears to be a rubber butt pad?

[Von Gruff]

The butt pad is what was on the stock so left it as is, The stock sealer I now use is spar varnish (any one of the good marine varnishes) and with a 50/50 mix with turps for the coat and sand off repititions, so that the sealer goes into the stock wood rather than just sitting on the surface as varnishes usually do. I have found that about 3 coats gets the surface sealed and with it sanded back to the surface the oil finish can go on except for when I wnat to get colour (alkanet oil) into the walnut stocks as that is done first, then the sealer, followed by the tung/blo oil finish. It reduces the number of oil rubbings especially in some of the more end grain parts of the shape or grain pattern which usually sucks in a great many more coats than the straight grain does.

[1075 tech]

If it hadn't been for your interest and comments/questions I would have stopped posting these projects as I dont do it for my ego but to share what may be of interest or instruction to others, so I do apreciate your input and am a little surprised that more of the forum members are not interested in custom rifles outside of the grendel specific model.

I wish I had the skill, talent, and vision (not eyesight vision) to do that work.

If I could, I'd send you my 35 year old Remington 788 18" .308 for you to restock and make a matching custom hunting knife to go with it.

[Von Gruff]

I have done a number of stocks for friends in the US when I have a suitable action or barrelled action for the inlet and am doing a lee Speed stock (with compannion knife) at the moment with a mauser stock later on.
I dont have a 788/308 action to do prestock for you but a friend has one in 223 so the barrel profile may be different. It is possible to do a finished stock except for the barrel channel which you would have to relieve from the 223 to your 308 profile. PM me or email vongruff@gmail.com to discuss further if that would be exceptable.

[Von Gruff]

Making grip caps a different way to what I had been doing.

Up until now I have been cutting my grip caps from oval of wood and shaping them when they are on the rifle but having been given some buff horn I decided to see what I could do about making a more traditional looking cap and started with the last piece of ebony I had in the drawer.
I had made a brass template to get the oval shape and had a couple of holes marked in it that allow the use of short 1/8 brass dowels (I use brazing rod) along with epoxy to fix them to the rifle stock.
Seeing as I had done the cap on both the Lee Speed 303 and the 400 I am working on at the moment I decided to cut the Jarah cap off and replace the 303 one with buff horn and the 400 with the piece of ebony I had.
First thing was to find an appropriate router bit in the box of bits and the one I had that was about right had the wrong sized ball race on it so with a bit of changing round of things I used one from another bit but had to make a .012 collar to space out the shaft to the I D of the ball race.

[Von Gruff]

After cutting the piece of horn to my pattern size I set the router in the vice and holding carefully to the piece of horn was able to get the shape I wanted. Doing it this way I only had it catch and get thrown across the shed floor a couple of time But getting to done and seeing that it would work was the start of looking at how I could streamline the process



I was quite pleased with the results though

[Von Gruff]

Before I started to look at making more I wanted to have this one on the Lee Speed as buff horn is rather traditional and I was starting to feel more conservative/traditional the longer I played with these Lee Enfield actions and the resulting rifles so I set the stock in the vise and had at it with the hacksaw. Seemed a shame to get rid of something that has taken quite a bit of time with files to shape but the end result will be worth it in my view.





After epoxying it on and tidying things up again I thought it was quite an improvement over the Jarah that I had initially used.

[Von Gruff]

So then it was back to looking at refining the grip making process so I cut some strips of purple heart and some of Jarah to 8.5mm thick and marked out the pattern



I only cut out a few ovals but made enough strips for another 50 caps.



The reason that I am able to rough cut the shapes is because I had played with another few router bits and made up one that worked like a laminate trimmer but for the thicker material.

[Von Gruff]

I had adapted an unused angle grinder tool by making new pins in the proper place for my pattern and this sat locked into the top of the trimmer pattern which in turn had pins that locked into (what would be the underside of) the cap so that there was no longer any danger of getting fingers too close to the working router bit or of having it grab and throw the piece I was working on.



Next step was to sort the router and I had an old work bench sitting unused so cut a piece of aluminium and screwed it to the base of the router in place of the floor plate and cut the apropriate sized receiver into the bench top


Should make a handy work station to speed up the process and make it safer. Having the patterns will make all the grip caps exactly the same and with this all sorted I am ready for a small batch of Buff horn that is coming from South Africa and some ebony that Frank has sourced for me in the US

[Von Gruff]

This was a few ebony caps being made and notice I lengthened the arm for the cap holder

[Von Gruff]

And having mentioned Lee Speeds we have mooved into a stock shape that I really enjoy and having had one in hand there is almost nothing faster to bring to the mount and get a shot away. That will occupy the next few nights posts with a few different ones from my own 303 and 400 plus a 375-303 and another couple of 303's. The magazine Lee Enfield and Magazine Lee Metford ran from 1888 with an 8 shot single stack magazine untill about 1892 when it changed and became a double stack 10 shot and consequently were marked as Lee Speed patent on the wrist socket. In 1904 it changed to the No 1 Mk 3 that you will be more familiar with from the first world war surplus sold in the US. I have done this same stockshape for the N0 1 Mk 3 as well and while the genuine Lee Speeds were marked as such on the wrist, that designation was an acknowledgment to the double stack magazine that became the standard for the Lee Enfield but was designed by an employee of the BSA factory and after the short patent period ran out they stopped marking the action wrist as such and simply called them a sporting rifle.
This is the definitive Lee Speed rifle made by BSA but other English custom riflemakers would also stock the commercial action so there are Rigby, Westley Richards and other rifles with similarstockwork but being custom rifles there were minor differences in the actual measurements and styles.
I was fortunate in having a few genuine BSA Lee Speeds to handle and make my patterns from

[montana]

When I first saw your router set up I cringed a little thinking that could go bad for certain body parts. Trying to hold on to a piece with ones fingers can go bad, "speaking from experience" while routering free hand. I was thinking how it would be possible to clamp the horn to a tool while routing and presto you used a grinding disk removal tool. So simple but I would have never thought of it. Then you made a great router table from and old bench and a piece of aluminum plate. I'm going to copy this since I have and old bench that I have kept around for years but never had a good use for until now. Bruce Lee once stated, "simplicity is the last step in art form", and you just proved it. Bravo! Those are the best looking Lee Medford and Lee Enfield rifles I have ever seen. If the picture shows the true color it is my favorite color for wood stock rifles. You have rekindled my love of wood stock rifles. I know you are a humble person Von Gruff so I will brag for you. Every one in my family and a couple of my shooting buddies have been very impressed by your work. My one friend has been dabbling in rifle stocks and gun smithing for a while and I cant wait to show him your work on this forum. Another great post thank's for sharing.